


One Last Detour, or: Long Time, No See

by PotatoKing



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Valentine's Day, fluff for days, if you haven't finished s9 yet, overly dramatic Doctor, then you probs shouldn't read it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6015540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotatoKing/pseuds/PotatoKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor woke up, head still aching from the edge of whatever panel or book he had fallen asleep on hours earlier, to roses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Detour, or: Long Time, No See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aPieceOfPi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPieceOfPi/gifts).



The Doctor woke up, head still aching from the edge of whatever panel or book he had fallen asleep on hours earlier, to roses. Rose petals covered every surface in the otherwise stark grey room, except for the space surrounding his head and an arrow in the negative space on the floor pointing to the door. The Doctor looked down briefly at what he had been lying on for the past 12 hours to find that it was a sealed envelope in his handwriting that read simply: For Clara.

That raised a slew of questions that he wasn’t ready to even think about answering until he had finished waking up. Once he felt that he could reliably stand up without blacking out and falling over, he opened the door to find a similar situation in the corridor; rose petals littering the ground, and a set of arrows leading him down the hall. "Curioser and curioser" he muttered to himself. Mesmerised, he followed the corridor to its end at the TARDIS kitchen. He opened the door to find what appeared to be the inside of a 1950s American diner; decidedly NOT the TARDIS kitchen. A stream of déjà vu flooded his head, of Lake Silencio 2011 and of...something else he couldn't put his finger on. Subconsciously, his grip on the envelope tightened. Just as he was about to leave, thinking he'd taken a wrong turn into a room that wasn't supposed to exist yet, he heard a familiar voice. 

"Wrong way, Doctor."  
The Doctor froze briefly before turning on his heel to face the voice. "Ashildr!" He said, clapping his hands together. "Long time, no see. To what do I owe the pleasure?"  
"You know what? I've given up trying to correct you on that. It seems like just yesterday it was you, me and the end of the universe. Of course, this may be due to the fact that it was. For me, at least. Keeping track of time as a time traveller seems like the very definition of an exercise in futility after a while, wouldn’t you agree?”  
“Can’t help but notice you very pointedly not answering my question.”  
Ashildr sighed. “If you must know, I’m given to understand that you owe the pleasure to a friend of yours that insisted that one more detour was absolutely worth it.”  
"Come again for papa fudge?" The Doctor asked after finally regaining his composure. Ashildr's face fell. "You really don't remember, do you? Well, I'll say this: the time lords don't mess around when it comes to technology that couldn't possibly have an innocent use. You're here because of Clara. I presumed you already knew that based on the letter."  
Once again, his hands tightened around the paper. "You realise at this point that I really don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.”  
“I know. I also know that you’ll hopefully be capable of re-considering your stance on that real soon.” Ashildr replied, trying to be as subtle as she could about reaching into her pocket. Unfortunately, the best way to look conspicuous to the Doctor is to try and be inconspicuous.  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow on noticing this. “Is that a gallifreyan mind-wiper in your pocket, or are you just hap-” is as far as he got before being stabbed.

Well, that’s how he would later describe it whilst slightly inebriated in a questionably legal drinking establishment in who-knows-where. The somewhat less drunk Doctor of the present (definitions of ‘present’ may vary) was aware of Ashildr grabbing something from her pocket, and then a sensation that he believed to be not dissimilar to being tazed before not being aware of terribly much at all. For the second time that day, The Doctor woke with a splitting headache and an envelope in his hand in a room filled with rose petals. This time, there were two differences: the first was that this time, he was pretty sure that the room he woke up in wasn’t in the TARDIS. At least, not his TARDIS. Looking around at the décor with mild disdain, he hoped it wasn’t his TARDIS. The second difference was that, through the pain and the vain attempts to remember how arms are supposed to work, he had the vaguest idea of who the envelope was for. He stood up, carefully avoiding an awkwardly placed table, and called out. 

“Hello?” he yelled into the void. Granted, the void looked a lot like a 1950’s diner, but it felt nonetheless like a void. Wandering around the room, he found what he believed to be the back door. Putting his ear against it, he heard snippets of conversation.  
“-nd you’re sure this’ll work?” he heard a familiar voice say. Feminine, with a hint of…cockney?  
“Absolutely. The mind wiper was designed to be reversible, in case it was misfired or the memories were important for a court case or what-not.” This voice the Doctor recognised as Ashildr’s. “Then again…” she tapered off.  
“Then again what.” The other voice asked pointedly.  
“Then again, you and he both tampered with the settings outside of its usual confines. It’s possible…that some of the memories might have gotten corrupted. By and large, he should be fine. Probably.”

This seemed like as good a time as any to make an entrance. He checked his hair in a mirror behind the counter before opening the door as quietly as he could, and stepping in. “’Probably’ is a dangerous term to base presumptions like that on, Ashildr.”  
The two turned around to face him, mouths as wide in bewilderment as the Doctor’s grin. The shorter of the two nearly brought him to the ground in a tackle that might have been a hug.

“I’ll leave you two alone. Just... put a tie on the door or something. And make sure that the door is a few floors down.” Ashildr called out, slowly backing away.  
Clara started to say something about it not being like that, but she’d closed the door and was probably halfway to the end of the corridor by the Doctor’s estimate.  
“So. Long time, no-” The Doctor started before Clara leaned in and the world fell away beneath them. He often wondered how humans were able to spend so long at this without coming up for air, but now he understood; after all, who in their right mind would want this to stop?  
After what seemed simultaneously like an eternity and nowhere near long enough, they surfaced long enough to get a word in edge-ways. “So.” He started once more. “Shall we?” he gestured to the door back to the diner.  
“Why not?” Clara replied, with a smile that could light the universe up. “It _is_ Valentine’s day, after all.” And with that, the door opened, and they went out hand-in-hand.

La fin

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Doctor Who or the related characters (as cool as that would be); they are all property of the BBC. For aPieceOfPi: I know this is slightly late, but Happy (American) Valentine's Day.Thanks for being about a day behind Aus, America.


End file.
